Orpheus Reborn
by Morbid Romantic
Summary: Subaru just needs a little time to think about what it was he wanted from Seishirou, and what he got.


TITLE: Orpheus Reborn BY: Morbid Romantic )  
SPOILERS: Tokyo Babylon & X/1999 DESCRIPTION: Subaru just needs a little time to think about the past, and what he wanted to begin with.

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And so you left me here, dying in the wake of what is left of you. I wish that I could be angry, but something else has consumed me, and the emptiness is so wonderfully numbing. I'm haunted by that last moment: the feeling of your body in my arms, where it should have always been; your smile, the first true smile I ever saw you give; and your whispered admission, the words I had been waiting to hear for nine years. I know that what you spoke was the truth. People don't lie when they die; they have no reason to.

But why did you die before I could say it back?

I lost the only thing that I had left. Why are you and Hokuto the lucky ones? Are you together, joking like you once did before the world came crashing down, watching me? 

I've give up hope of ever being with the two of you.

I am paying the price for some sin that I don't even know I committed. Surely it had to be a terrible transgression to warrant a punishment like this. The pain inside is so deep and rooted that it's exploded, and it runs through me in constant endless cycles. Now, I am nothing but this pain, this regret, and I am measured by its force. 

I was happy to be anything and everything you wanted me to be. Your prey, your toy, your victim. I struggled because you wanted me to, because you were the hunter. But I was so happy captured, searching eyes that looked into mine with nothing but cruelly, bland interest a mask for something deeper that you were afraid of because you didn't understand it.

That love you confessed to. 

You were always a good actor, Seishirou. But I became an expert on you. Your pretense couldn't fool me. I'm not the stupid kid I was so long ago.

I should have known from the beginning, but I was blinded by your betrayal. Sakurazukamori, even you had a secret side, even more secret than your true nature. Did it scare you to love me? Did you explode into rages when I consumed your thoughts so completely that you couldn't concentrate on anything else? Did you throw things? Curse? How many people did you kill to wash away the waking goodness in you?

Did you feel worthy of my love? Is that why you hid it for so long; you didn't think that I could ever love you back?

I did. Despite everything, Seishirou, I loved you.

All I ever wanted was to die in your arms, though it was a foolish wish. You would have never held me, even if it were my last moments. You would have stepped back and watched me with your arms limp at your sides, eyes empty. That would have been okay; I would have been happy just to die in your presence. 

I can remember that year as if it were yesterday. Everything, Seishirou. Sitting next to you, feeling the safest that I have ever felt. The warmth of your body penetrated the layers of clothing lovingly stacked on me by Hokuto. The smell of sakura and cologne on your skin; whenever I would leave, I would smell it on me. Sometimes I would catch your eye and see the fleeting hungry look of a hunter watching me, studying me, and my heart would flutter. I wasn't scared. It excited me. 

Why didn't you notice in those last few days that I didn't blush and try to push away when you put your arms around me? How could you have missed that, Sakurazukamori? Your attention to detail is immaculate. I had accepted your touch and your affection, even if I didn't realize it then. I wanted your arms around me. And I would not have pulled away if you tried more than just to hold me.

But it wasn't fair; you set up the bet so that I wouldn't win. How could I have had an advantage if I never even knew there was a bet in the first place? Yet, I won, didn't I? And I bet that made you so mad.

Because the Sakurazukamori doesn't hesitate, and he doesn't let anyone escape. But I did, didn't I? You could have killed me then, wrapping me in the branches of your tree, but you hesitated. You didn't want me dead; you didn't want it to end that way. And that was why you let my grandmother rescue me. No mistake on your part, just the result of a deep secret.

You loved me.

At least I have that to wrap around me at night when I am isolated and alone, listening to the insects buzz and the cars moving in syncopated paths down the roads near my apartment. I can pretend that I am back then, and you are outside in the living room joking with Hokuto, probably about me. The memory of the sound of your voice, so clear in my mind, lulls me off to a safe, dreamless sleep. If I don't think this way, I am plagued by nightmares.

You are both the subject of my sweet dreams and my nightmares. You are the catalyst of all things within me, Seishirou. I am nothing without you, you should have known that. Everything about you defined me, and now I don't know who I am, or what I am supposed to do without you.

Did anyone ever tell you that you were beautiful?

Did you dream about me? Did you ever miss me or our year together? Was there ever a moment when you wanted to go back to then? What were your dreams like, Seishirou? Blood and sakura? Was that all there was inside of you?

I think that if you would have let me show you what love was like, you would have liked it and everything could have came out a lot differently. I know that we could have been happy together.

And now I can't stop the bleeding. If there is an afterlife, I want it with you. 


End file.
